Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Gaza bean counting

According to the CIA World Factbook, the Gaza Strip has an estimated population of 1,500,202 in an area of 360 square kilometres.

Feeding these figures into a spreadsheet yields an average population density of 4,167 persons per square kilometre.

As we know, however, only a portion of the Gaza is built-up. Looking at this map, I’d estimate the built-up area of the territory to be around 20 percent. Assuming the population in these built-up areas to be of the order of 70% of the Gaza population — that’s a guess — my spreadsheet yields an average urban population density of 14,585 persons per square kilometre.

Regarding the recent war in Gaza, Human Rights Watch executive director Kenneth Roth notes...

Awful as it is to have white phosphorous raining down on you, the IDF probably caused more civilian casualties with its use of 155 mm high-explosive artillery shells in Gaza. These weapons can injure civilians from blast and fragmentation over an area with a radius of as much as 300 meters. That’s roughly the equivalent of taking three football fields, lining them end to end and then rotating them around the point of the shell’s impact.

Now, a blast radius of 300 meters represents a blast area of 0.283 square kilometres. Thus, on the above calculations, a 155 mm shell fired into a built-up area of the Gaza could potentially kill or otherwise harm 4,123.896 people.

Naturally this figure would be reduced by factors such as structures or even human bodies which would impede the blast wave. There must be a formula for that somewhere...

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20 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Apologists for Hamas, such as you and your fellow travellers, fail to understand that it would never occur were Hamas cowards not using civilians and children as human shields.

Israel, through the IDF, is quite correct to react with overwhelming and disproportionate force. In fact, it should be using more high explosive shrapnel shells: the lessons of the trenches of WWI have indicated its efficacy. The women, children and other civilians these cowards hide behind are little different than the human parapets of those trenches.

Perhaps you might wish to apply your obviously well thought through spreadsheet to the hundreds of Grad or Katyshu rockets launched against Israeli civilian targets? I realise that this might necessitate some re-working of that spreadsheet but I imagine that is a small price for balance don't you think?

You might start by googling up the population density figures for Israel, particularly that within a range of, say, 4.5 – 40km?

Thanks in advance.

Eliot Parsons

28/1/09 8:24 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Thanks for the compliment re my spreadsheet.

Do you like spreadsheets?

28/1/09 9:05 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Careful Eliot

That's a dissenting view you've got going there. One more word out of line and the courageous, humanitarian truth seeker who runs this blog will ban you.

28/1/09 9:10 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ban me? That would be a hoot! It’s not as if I couldn’t cope with such an event now is it?

I shouldn’t be concerned for my sake Geoff – assuming that is you Geoff. I’m not at all certain the peace impersonators that occupy this site would find that coeval with their professed beliefs.

Those “looking after the interests of the Palestinian people” continued to do so, in their time honoured fashion, just as President Obama’s envoy arrived.. Apparently this bomb attack (which killed one IDF soldier and injured three others) was carried out by a group “not previously linked with the ruling Hamas Islamist movement”.

Never mind though, the martyrs of Hamas have immediately adopted them:

Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri did not claim responsibility but praised the bomb attack on the troops as "a natural response to the crimes of the occupier".

Really? You have to laugh don’t you?

Meanwhile Hillary Clinton, recently confirmed secretary of state and failed Democratic candidate, opined that Israel had the right to defend itself against the rockets that Hamas has fired from Gaza over recent years.

Seems she has learnt something.

Perhaps she’d agree that Israel has just as much right to defend itself against cowardly bomb attacks as well?

With luck Hillary might persuade Obama that the timely delivery of several “bunker-busting” bombs to the IDF, for defensive purposes of course, might end the flow of materiel through those tunnels on the Egyptian border with Gaza.

That would make a penetrating, if effective, start to her new career.

It really is time that these thugs and amoral murderers, masquerading as freedom fighters, were eliminated from the region. Pity it would not be so easy to remove or re-educate their apologists.

Eliot Parsons

28/1/09 11:45 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I’m not at all certain the peace impersonators that occupy this site would find that coeval with their professed beliefs.

'Coeval' is now my word of the day.

28/1/09 9:37 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Hey Seep and Guff (if that's who you are - nice bit of shepherding and intercepting, by the way).

Save it, I know all about it.

Having won control of the land by way of a war of conquest, ethnic cleansing, murder and bloody mayhem, Israel now only wishes to live in peace. Entirely understandable.

But to live in peace whilst aggressively pursuing expansionist policies, in violation of longstanding UN resolutions, and all the rest of it. Not so understandable.

You know all that stuff, but it's a facet of historical reality which jars against your sad little paradigm.

So you engage in all these shenanigans to defend the indefensible. Just a couple of recent examples which came to attention...

Seep recently cited a youtube video sourced from Fatah's PATV depicting a young girl blaming Hamas for the carnage in Gaza.

Now, if the girl in that video had blamed Israel for the carnage in Gaza, you can bet your sweet bippy Seep would have derided it as just another example of Pallywood agitprop and deceit.

You see, it's all the same with you guys as long as it squares with and supports your paradigm. Though Fatah has the destruction of the "Zionist state" as fundamental to its charter, it has been of use in the war against Hamas.

Convergence at last, eh? We are all Fatah now!

Well, at least we were until the Gaza atrocity now seems to have swung Fatah and Hamas into accommodations with each other. Nice work...

I saw also recently Seep's claim that Hamas uses retarded children as "remote controlled bomb drones" (or meme to that effect). Now, we've all seen reports that Al Qaeda in Iraq serially used retarded persons as suicide bombers. Then there was the sensational case a few years ago of a retarded Palestinian teen being recruited as a suicide bomber. But that was the work of the al Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, non-Islamists and allied with Fatah. I've devoted a bit of effort but can find no reference to Hamas using retarded persons as suicide bombers.

Again, it's all the same with you jokers. Any old rubbish to support your paradigm and, presently, to defend the indefensible.

Seep, although I sympathise with your exasperation with the few dills at WD, keeping up with your inaccuracies and spin is too time consuming and ultimately not worth the effort. Having said that, a peek every now and again can be entertaining during idle moments. I did, by the way, admire some of your efforts against the infestation of creationists way back when, who since seem to have had no use for WD.

As for Guff... hahhahhahhhhaahhh.

The really sad thing is that if you goons were capable of engaging in this topic in good faith, as human beings rather than as feral agenda monkeys, some people might approach your viewpoint more sympathetically. As it is, no one with any sense takes you seriously, and as for your present campaign, most people view the assault on Gaza with revulsion.

No, you're not banned. But I know you'll understand, as gentlemen (?), that your toxic sludge is not particularly welcome here.

Webdiary is the place for you, enjoy. Oh, and of course Tim Blair's shines as a natural center for your worldview.

PS. I'm late responding because I've been out at the beach all day, rather than obsessing over a small-scale, though regrettably intractable, conflict half the world away.

29/1/09 12:43 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

As it is, no one with any sense takes you seriously, and as for your present campaign, most people view the assault on Gaza with revulsion.

Oh joy! I find it unlikely in the extreme that I, or my brother, would be taken seriously by the Green Left Weekly subscribing “peace impersonators” hereabouts. I’m wondering whether or not these racist anti-Semites might not be you ilk.

I see that the IDF has taken my advice and bombed the terrorist tunnels leading into Gaza from Egypt. This will not be all. Hamas, having adopted the bombers of the border crossing, has not received its well earned retribution:

“We do not intend to gloss over incidents like these. We will not let Hamas and its outgrowths continue their hostile acts of terror. Anyone who hits us will have to absorb a serious blow in the future, too.” (E Barak)

“The army's reaction today was only operational," a senior government official quoted Mr Olmert as saying. "This was not the response to the killing of a soldier and wounding of three others. Israel's response shall come.

Quite right too don’t you think? One hopes that response is in terms of bunker-busters, tanks and high explosive shrapnel shells.

It’s about time that Coele-Syria was cleansed of these hateful, cowardly thugs.

It’s also about time I decided where I shall partake of lunch. Somewhere that serves black beer obviously…

Chris Ramsay & Eliot Parsons

This is a story of a coupla brothers
We had the same father but different mothers
We keep to a line like a family should
Roaming the Web for the Isaraeli good
It came to pass one fateful day
We found ourselves down AH way
The blogger, the Padre, and Dylan away
Pleading on their knees and in our sway

We'd only stopped for a coupla postings
But they told us we’re trouble; get off the hustings
A poor little blog in need of aid
My brother and me had never been afraid
The art of sophistry is not dead
Rhetorical flights across the web
There'd be “debating” points for agenda monkeys
Who chased away the peacenik flunkies

Bombs are stronger than downpipes
Bombs illicit more blood
Bombs, bombs, bombs are stronger than downpipes
Bombs make Gaza a river of blood…

29/1/09 11:41 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

So then, Whoever, still here?

Seen any good spreadsheets lately?

29/1/09 4:46 PM  
Blogger Father Park said...

Only the ones I'm continually doing in the bloody office Jacob, you Green Left Weekly subscribing peace impersonator you!

That is, when not stirring the pot.

He, he, he......

Off to the local for a cold black and lamb shanks.

Chris Ramsay & Eliot Parsons

29/1/09 5:20 PM  
Blogger Father Park said...

Glad you enjoyed coeval Dylan...

29/1/09 5:21 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Whoa, Mike, you naughty chameleon, you!

Your ability to affect Seep's memespeak is uncanny. And might I say... Chilling!

All that was missing were gratuitous references to stuff like the Peace of Westphalia and Aristotelian teleology.

Then again, I sorta had this uneasy feeling, because no self-respecting Spammer for Israel would explicitly say anything like "Israel, through the IDF, is quite correct to react with overwhelming and disproportionate force." Because whatever Israel does is never disproportionate, but rather ju-u-u-ust right.

And darn, so my Seep-and-Guff diatribe above remains unread by its target audience. Darn!

Hope you won't be offended if I sometimes refer to you as Eliot Spamsey...?

29/1/09 6:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Liked it but I had to look it up, Father Park. :)

29/1/09 7:39 PM  
Blogger Father Park said...

I'd thought I'd left many a footprint. Not enough it seems.

When was the last time the C Parsons / CP / Eliot Ramsay algorithm refered to ilk, Coele-Syria or black beer?

The ruined Sting masterpiece at the end of the last should have given it away.

And yes, algorithms are easy to paraphrase.

If you don't learn a new word occasionally Dylan, life is not worth the living. I've always enjoyed coeval - it sounds nothing like its meaning.

There's another word I enjoy: sedulous. One might describe Eliot Ramsay as CP's sedulous ape.

29/1/09 10:06 PM  
Blogger Father Park said...

Oh, by the way, that was Geoff.

Seemimgly couldn't resist coming to the aid of a fellow traveller apparently posting to this blog...

29/1/09 10:24 PM  
Blogger Kathy Farrelly said...

It’s also about time I decided where I shall partake of lunch. Somewhere that serves black beer obviously…
This plus the poem gave it away for me.
The black beer and lunch bit was the dead giveaway though!

It's soooo Mike's style..
Truly... I could almost smell the lamb shanks!

29/1/09 10:56 PM  
Blogger Jacob A. Stam said...

Oh, it was Guff? Okay, I don't feel so 'had' after all.

I was thinking maybe Eliot Spamsey was, not necessarily Seep (owing to the 'disproportionate' gaffe), but some other keyboard warrior who was familiar with various WD ilks. Hence, I thought the reference to black beer was an attempt to get a rise from you, Mike, given your well-known fondness for the noble beverage. Believe it or not, that berserk 'Noelene' algorithm sprang to mind. Strange how the mind turns, sometimes...

The 'lunch' bit escaped me. Didn't have time to follow the Sting link or properly analyse the lyrics. Our extreme hot spell has gummed up my thought processes.

And whatever other excuses I can think up for having been 'had'...

Oh this is priceless. Congratulations Father Park!

Sunburned I am. Bloody stubbed toe I have.

Time for one last beer, or two, whilst watching the setting sun. Oh that's right, the sun set hours ago. Darn, too late, I've already opened the bottle.

30/1/09 1:41 AM  
Blogger Father Park said...

Face it Jacob: I'm a bastard. A bloke's gotta have a little fun sometime though. Was wondering how long to carry on for.

"You have to laugh, don't you?"

Sunburned I am. Bloody stubbed toe I have.

When this many black beers you have swallowed, as pissed as me will you be. My own counsel will I keep as to who I will mimmick. Hmm, yes, yes.

30/1/09 11:16 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Oh but you're the quality kind of bastard. An exponent of inventive, creative bastardry.

Another excuse I've just thought of: Your Eliot Spamsey posts were virtually free of typos. ;-)

30/1/09 2:46 PM  
Blogger Father Park said...

Cheeky bastard! Bertie and keyboards don't always mix: particularly after a slew of schooners.

30/1/09 3:47 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ah Bertie, and I thought I was the only one who counted their schooners in slews.

1/2/09 8:02 PM  

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